It is, as we all know, of paramount importance to contact the client while they are still ‘on the hook’ as it were. I have had leads come through while I am on my computer and so the customer has been contacted immediately via e-mail if I feel the hour is unsociable, following up with a phone call as appropriate, only to find that the potential client has been the victim of an alien abduction of some kind. In these cases, I follow up with a letter after 24 hours.
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As we are all too aware, I purchased that lead and, unless the phone number is wrong, it becomes attributable to the cost of doing business – more difficult to absorb for us single intermediary operations. The leads, we are assured, are exclusive, but I have had a situation where the client would not respond until he received my letter, only for him to tell me that he had sorted it all out with the other intermediary who contacted him from his only enquiry. I got my refund after a fight.
On two occasions I have paid for the privilege of confirming that the deal the clients have already been offered was a good one and in several cases the clients have not been in a position to remortgage, while the latest client informed me she had completed an online factfind, having sourced a product and answering yes to the ‘would you like to be contacted’ button, was only expecting to be contacted by an intermediary from the lender she had just applied to for confirmation of the deal. Obviously my phone call came as bit of a shock to her.
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Hall referred to them as ‘playing in the sandpit’. To me they are ‘tyre kickers’. Fairly academic really, as a majority of these people seem to think our time is for free and of no importance and yet we are expected to do our very best for them.
I have raised this point with lead generation companies and asked whether it would be possible to insert a little caveat next to the button requesting contact, explaining that once the button is pressed, the mortgage intermediary is incurring costs and if the enquirer is not serious then the intermediary will reserve the right to invoice the enquirer for at least the cost of the lead. Apparently this is not possible as it might scare people away.
What I have found to be a very useful tool for comparison is to log all your leads onto an Excel spread sheet and score them accordingly. For example, one for business written, etc. It then becomes easy to work out what percentage of written business is covering the cost of leads.
Thank you to both Farrell and Hall for their observations, as I had forgotten about the therapeutic value of a good old rant.
Ian Hall
Vintage Business Limited
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